Desires and Priorities

Last year I took a look back on my work as a Sacred Lover and talked about how I felt some things were missing. Later I talked about how I was almost ready to explore what my priorities are in my spiritual work. I hoped to discuss that with people who were close in my life before sharing. That proved painfully impossible and so I'm just now getting back to that exploration.

Living a Life of Love

First and foremost, when I walk Venus's path it is about living a life of love. I work to cultivate the love in my life. I work to help those close to me grow. I explore how to love better, teaching and learning alongside those who are close to me.
I am amazed at how successful this work has been. I recently reviewed my blog and personal notes going forward from the beginning of 2016. I'm proud of how much I've grown and how much people close to me have grown. My whole face lights up and my spirit fills with joy when I think about what we've accomplished and how I helped bring that about.

Sacred Lover

Being open to approaching people I don't know as well is also important. I want a world in which we need not hide our interest in cultivating love. To build that world, people need to be able to turn for help growing as lovers. They need to have people it is safe to turn to. I am called to offer that, and I choose to offer that because it's a critical part of a change I'd like to see in the world.
It's sometimes hard to draw the boundary between this work and simply leading a life of love. Sometimes after being approached by someone I find that a friendship has developed or they have become close in my life in some other way.
Even so, I can point to important examples where I've helped people as a Sacred Lover. I've helped open people's minds to new ways of thinking. I've seen that blossom as people I helped ended up helping others approach some aspect of the world with compassion.
There's one area where I'm holding my breath and smiling with joy. I'm amazed at what might be possible; I never would have guessed. I'm proud to have been asked to help. Yet that is not my story to tell.
My thinking has changed somewhat on Sacred Lover. When I originally took the vow, I was thinking in the context of offering Sacred Lover in some organized manner. I'll explore that in a few paragraphs. I've realized that being open to the Sacred Lover calling is critical. Being there when the work finds me is something I value greatly. I have not failed in that responsibility if I don't have an organization--if I don't find a way to market what I have to offer.
Last year was also very good at helping me understand areas where I need additional training. I'll talk about that in future posts. There are certainly things I would not even think of attempting until I get that training. Even after I learn more, I'm likely to turn away from some things as too dangerous or not well-suited to my skills. That's always been true: I'm not a therapist, mental health professional, or doctor. I just learned more about my own boundaries.

Community of Support

Sometimes walking Venus's path is hard. I need people who have my back when I face those challenges. I always have had these people when I've needed them. Remembering this has sometimes been hard. Two of the people who I counted on for support are no longer available. Having those I would normally turn to walk away felt a lot like having no one to turn to. Yet when I reached out, I found others.
I think I'm back to having a stable support network. I will have a lot more to say about the joy of finding confidence in that in a near future post.

Sharing my Messages of Love

I want a world where we can talk about our growth and challenges as a lover. I want a world where it is easier to see that while we each walk our own path, we can learn from each other as we grow and change as lovers. Lover's Grove was founded with the idea of accomplishing that.
I need to at least share my story as a lover.
One of my realizations was that this was a separate priority from creating a community where people could go to grow as lovers. These stories may be able to reach further than any physical community; the stories themselves serve a purpose beyond helping people feel comfortable in a community of lovers.
Right now this blog is an important part of writing down my story. Lover's Grove initially talked about the importance of video work. I still think that could be valuable; I'm still open to that vulnerability. Realistically I'm not currently in a position to do that. I am missing skills to put together and distribute quality legal videos. The work I'm currently involved in either would not lend itself to video presentation or involves people who don't want their stories told that widely.
I'd love to find other modalities to tell stories, but the critical thing is to tell the stories.
Exploring this, I realized that my fiction is important to me here. I've had several key examples where my fiction has helped people look at themselves as lovers in new ways. That's exactly what I'm trying to accomplish. That said, at the moment, I don't have any fiction trying to fight my schedule for a chance to be written. I have ideas but none are squirming enough to actually get out.
I'd like to do better in the area of sharing:

I'd like to figure out how to better present and market this blog, hoping to increase readership.

Working to get mentioned by others in this space might be very helpful.

I wonder if my life needs a podcast.

I'll be delving into these bullets as time permits.

Community of Lovers

The Lover's Grove vision of a community of lovers working to find those willing to approach growth in their love work and share their stories appeals to me. Realistically, I don't know how to bring it about. Right now, this is not something I know how to focus on. It's worth coming back to from time to time, because I think it could be powerful.
One critical realization was to understand that my community of support need not be the same as a community of lovers in the sense that Lover's Grove imagines. I got myself frightened of the Sacred Lover work worried that I was depending on the grove for support there when the grove is not strong enough to provide that.
I hope that one day Lover's Grove will be more than just me. I value the idea. But even now, I have the support I need to do my work.